


Moths at a Windowpane

by razboinicul_iernii



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sense8 (TV) Fusion, Calculus finals, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Kid Tony, Pie, Shifty doctors, Torture, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-23
Updated: 2017-03-23
Packaged: 2018-10-09 17:27:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10417299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/razboinicul_iernii/pseuds/razboinicul_iernii
Summary: A few scenes from an abandoned WIP featuring Sense8-style shared consciousness.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'll admit this-I have only seen about half of Sense8 and this fic has little to do with it besides the sharing consciousness thing. I don't even know if the way I write it is the way it works in that show. D: I just used the Sense8 tag to give an idea of what this is like. The idea came one day, allowed me to hammer out a few thousand words, and then now there's nothing, so this is it. It doesn't have a plot, it isn't even much of a story, just a handful of scenes that I enjoyed writing and maybe someone would enjoy reading. 
> 
> The initial plot was that Bucky was one of x number of people with special links. Over time, the people he is linked to die one bye one but since he keeps living, he makes new links to replace the old ones. It starts with Tony as a kid, then it happens to Rumlow, Kamala, and a few others I floated but never managed to write for were Natasha, T'Challa, and Wanda. Hydra would notice this and try to eliminate them to prevent their existence from being discovered. 
> 
> The title is from a line in the book Ubik, by Philip K. Dick: "He felt all at once like an ineffectual moth, fluttering at the windowpane of reality, dimly seeing it from outside.”

He ground his teeth together as hard as he could. Because maybe if he did that, everything would stay down down and away from his eyes and his head and his mouth. All that scariness, all the screaming and pain and cold. All the things that his young mind didn't have words to describe. He refused to go to the bear sitting on his desk. He refused to take it and squeeze it until he felt okay again because that was a baby thing to do and his dad was right, he had to grow up eventually. He would be eight next month and it was time to stop being a baby sometime. The world would walk all over you if you didn't grow up.

When he closed his eyes tight and tried to force himself to sleep, even though his limbs felt buzzy and shaky like they did when someone was about to find you in a game of hide and seek, he just went back there. He saw the cold room that looked like a basement in a factory scarier than anything he'd ever seen, nothing like the factories that built things for his dad. His arms prickled with goosebumps from a cold way worse than any snow day. A cold so deep in him that made it so even when he breathed out of his mouth, it wouldn't turn into fog because his insides weren't warm enough. His arms and legs wouldn't work, and big men with big guns had to take him and drag him away.

The men pulled him to a chair and he didn't know what else to do but cry. He shouldn't cry because he's almost eight and he's got to grow up sometime and only babies cry. Men do something about it and he had to grow up. So even though he tried very hard to keep himself from crying, he did something about it and tried to get away from this chair that put a fear in him unlike one he'd ever known. The men yelled at him in words he didn't understand, pointing their guns in his face and yelling and shoving and he cried harder.

The men talked more, to each other, to a man who held a small red book and watched it all like he was bothered about something. So he thought, maybe he'd almost won, maybe he'd almost gotten away. So he would try again and-

And the chance was gone when big metal bands snapped in place on his arms, keeping him in the chair. He cried and his whole body shook with it and his dad was going to be so disappointed if he just kept sitting there and crying like that! He pushed and pulled and did everything he could but the bands were too strong for him to break. The men talked more until finally, the man with the red book spoke to him. It was in the other language, the one he couldn't understand.

"I want to go home!" he cried, face burning with shame because that's just what a baby would say.

The man with the book watched him for a moment and he hoped, he hoped so much that the man would agree and let him go. But then he asked, in English, "Where is home, soldier?"

"I want to go home!" he repeated hysterically, like they'd just know if they heard him say it again. They must've known where his home was, because they'd stolen him from there.

"Why are you crying like a child?" the man asked.

"I'm just scared! What are you going to do? I don't want it, I want my mom!" He was such a baby. He had to be braver than this because when people saw you were scared of something, they'd always use it against you. You couldn't ever tell people you were afraid of anything.

The man breathed in deep, watching him as he shook and cried before finally he nodded to someone. Something was whirring over his head. Something came down, lower, lower, and he shook and screamed and cried until-

He didn't know what happened next because he was home again. He was still so cold from it, still shaking and fighting away childish tears. He couldn't close his eyes again, ever. Not if he'd see that place and those men and that chair. He slid out of his bed, heart still pounding, and he thought any minute one of the men would find him in the hallway and drag him away. He needed, he wanted-

He was outside the closed door of his parents' bedroom before he knew it, and he pushed down a sob. Because if his dad opened the door and saw him crying like a little baby in the middle of the night...

He ran back to his room and jerked the door shut behind him and locked it. Then he grabbed the bear off the desk and jumped into bed, pushing himself back against the wall as far as he could. Covering every bit of himself except his eyes, he squeezed the bear in the blue uniform tight. He'd be eight next month and that meant he was still seven now. Maybe it was a baby thing to do. But it made him feel better to pretend that Captain America would keep any bad men from dragging him away.

* * *

What had gotten their attention was probably the most inexplicable part of his life. Naturally. It wasn't something bandied about like other records. No one would find the information on any websites or Guiness compendiums. Because there were world records, and then, there were freaks of nature. The 'enhanced', if you were the polite sort. So it was kept under pretty tight wraps and he wasn't all that proud of it because it hadn't happened since. It wasn't like it was anything more than a lucky shot. Really lucky. Ungodly so.

He'd been twenty-six in a sniper's perch sweating his ass off, only moving to keep a fly from landing on his face every few minutes. It was the same shit as any other day, he figured. And then it happened. The hazy, heat-distorted image of a vehicle coming up over the distant horizon. Must've been the size of a matchbox car from here, and it got closer. Closer. The target was confirmed. And it was like-

"It was like someone else taking over," he'd said during the interview. "Everything-Even the most minute things, how I held myself, where I put my weight, the way I held the gun. It all sort of...changed."

"Did you feel like you were outside of yourself? Like a spectator from outside of your own body?" the man had asked without any accusations to color his tone. Just professional, routine disinterest.

"No. It wasn't like that. I was there. But somebody else was too. There-I felt this weird kind of detachment. I'm not the kind of guy that gets jittery over a kill. I'm pretty cool under pressure. But this was-" He'd shrugged, at a loss for words. He'd never experienced something like it, the way it felt to hold that gun and kill a person, through a windshield, from two miles away. It was just unheard of. Impossible. How could he line up a shot like that? Just thinking about it was giving him a headache. "It wasn't work. It wasn't something I had to _do._  It was as natural as breathing."

"Did you feel satisfaction at the successful execution of the target?"

He considered it, slowly realizing that yes, that had been the first thought in his mind where any normal human being would've been flipping their shit over a shot like that. "Yeah. It felt good. I knew-" It didn't make any sense, but what he'd thought was: My actions have been pleasing. My superiors will be satisfied. He shook his head. "I just knew I'd done good and it made me feel good because of it. Think if I'd had a tail it'd have been wagging." He snorted at the absurdity and how it felt like the most apt comparison he could make. He'd felt like a dog who'd fetched the ball. Who sat when told.

The interviewer had noted that and asked, "And have you since been able to replicate this accomplishment?"

"No." Not for lack of trying. He couldn't count how many hours he'd wasted out in the country at his buddy's makeshift gun range. He'd started with a target at two miles and worked his way back, closer and closer til he finally consistently sank his shots. When that happened, it was within a normal range. His two mile record-shattering kill was just sheer coincidence, dumb luck. Really fucking dumb, because if he hadn't made that shot, they'd stood a good chance of losing the target altogether through his premature attempt.

"We have here your vision tests and the genetics studies you were asked to submit to." He glanced at the open folder as the interviewer leafed through it. He'd seen it all before and knew the results. "Everything is normal. Your eyesight is fine, but nothing exceptional. Your DNA shows no evidence of any mutations to indicate any enhancements, natural or otherwise. With that in mind, how do you explain what happened?"

And he'd told them the conclusion he'd come to. There was no explanation to be had. It'd happened, and it hadn't happened since, so what was there left to say?

"Thank you, Mr. Rumlow. We'll be in touch."

And they had been. They'd let just enough time pass for him to kind of let the whole thing fade in his memory. Some freak accident he'd been a part of. A fun story to tell over drinks with his buddies so they could tell him to fuck off with that bullshit. Something to impress ladies with, sometimes. Not much of note had happened until he'd been contacted to participate in a 'study'. The language was persuasive, the amount he'd earn by accepting even more so. The organization behind it wanted him and they wanted him badly. That's all he could figure, because these numbers were simply not typical for this kind of thing.

So he went. Maybe it was stupid. From what he could gather, the group wasn't anything shady. They focused on behavioral and psychological studies. Had actual published results from doctors within their ranks. There were real people whose actions he could trace from journal to journal, so it wasn't like this was some fake ad drawing in unwilling organ donors or something.

That didn't keep him from feeling anxious as he sat there in the boring, sterile waiting room, bouncing a knee relentlessly like he could get rid of all the excess energy that way. He wasn't given to nervousness. He'd make a shitty soldier if he was. So what the hell was he worried about? He glanced at the lady behind the desk, and her eyes darted away quickly as she went back to typing at the computer. No one ever called the desk, he realized suddenly. Every office he'd ever had the displeasure of sitting in, medical or otherwise, someone called the desk during his wait.

Maybe that was a stupid thing to be focused on, but he was. He glanced around. There was another person waiting, calmly reading a magazine. Did it cross a line to ask why the guy was here? Probably. But what did he care? Wasn't like he-

"Mr. Rumlow?"

His name felt weird without a rank attached to it. Sanitary. Normal. He could be wearing a suit and tie to an office. The rank wasn't important to him, exactly, so much as the sign that he wasn't civilian. He was not afraid of blood, shedding it or drawing it. "Yeah," he confirmed, standing up and approaching the woman in the magenta scrubs at the door. The guy in the waiting room had gotten here before him. But maybe this wasn't a first come first serve kind of thing.

He followed her through the bland halls to a typical looking office. There was a vinyl chair. A stool. Cotton balls and tongue depressors. Leaflets on health issues he'd never given any thought to. "How are we today, sir?" the woman asked cheerfully, setting to checking his vitals.

"Fine," he said automatically. There was nothing unusual about the place. What was he concerned about? Or was he? A strange feeling had been persisting since before he even got here. That anxiety that wasn't his because he didn't get anxious. But he had it all the same now, that worry. Worry because he hadn't been asked to do something like this before. Worry that he'd do badly. Worry that he'd do wrong. And nothing was as upsetting as failure. Nothing was as  _dangerous_ as failure.

"Heart rate's a little high. Worried?"

He focused on the room around him. "Well," he said slowly, figuring out what to say. Did he tell the stupid truth? What did he have to lose? "Yeah. Which is weird, 'cause I don't usually. I'm not an anxious person."

She noted that. "That's okay. As you've already read in our initial letter, the study doesn't involve anything invasive. You won't even see a needle today."

He'd read it twice, just to be sure he hadn't missed something. All it involved was being hooked up to some electrodes to measure brain waves while they asked some questions. Pretty simple stuff. "Yeah."

"May I ask what it is, specifically, you're worried about?" She kept her focus on his file as she asked, pen at the ready.

He watched as she transcribed his answer. "Failing, I guess. Like if I don't do this right, things aren't gonna go very well for me." It felt twice as stupid to say it than think it. "I know it's not that serious, though," he added quickly, hoping to save face.

"Well, just remember, there are no right or wrong answers, and you'll receive payment regardless of the results of the study." They went over his medical history briefly. Wasn't much to say. They focused a lot on mental disorders, but he couldn't even name a crazy uncle or anything. His mom's side had heart issues. Dad's side didn't have anything of note. And he'd been consistently healthy all his life, save drinking on a regular basis.

The nurse left him alone for a minute. He sat there, eyes roaming over the room, looking for cameras, maybe. If there were any, they were really well hidden. But why would there be? He let his eyes fall back to his hands in his lap and-

He wasn't in the office anymore.

He jerked back at the shock and he caught sight of multiple guns being leveled at his head. He froze immediately. A hand came to rest on his shoulder. "Soldier." The voice was calm, but full of authority. He thought of a zookeeper placating a pissed off lion. Around him, the guns all lowered at about the same time, as if signaled. "Stay focused. Make me proud." Someone brushed back his suddenly long hair, affixing a cold piece of plastic to his right temple.

He blinked quickly. And he was back in the office, where some doctor was explaining the EEG machine that'd been wheeled into the room while a nurse pressed an electrode to his left temple. He looked down at his hands, then let his eyes take in the room. The room without any gun-wielding SWAT teams.

"Do you understand, Mr. Rumlow?"

Fuck no, he wanted to blurt out. But where was the fun in that? "Yeah."

The pieces weren't exactly falling into place. He was starting to get pretty fucking concerned about whatever the hell had just happened. Was it a hallucination? Was he going insane? It was vaguely familiar, in one very specific way. The two-mile snipe. It had that same crowded-brain feeling, but on overdrive. No longer just a vague, ghostly sensation. He thought of the weird interview he'd gone through afterwards, their interest in him and he'd initially thought it was just some top level black ops get-up looking to put his potentially ridiculous talent to good use. Then they'd figured out it was all just luck and lost interest.

Maybe they hadn't after all.

"I want you to close your eyes. In thirty seconds, I will play a tone. When you hear that tone, I want you to describe to me what image comes to mind. You will have ten seconds to answer. There are no wrong answers in this test. Do you understand?"

Again, he didn't. What was this testing? He realized they'd never explicitly stated what their goal was, only that they wanted participants to answer a 'questionnaire'. "Yeah," he said anyway because he had the sinking suspicion that saying no wouldn't have clarified anything for him.

"Okay. Let's begin."

He took a breath and closed his eyes. There was a chiming noise, and he focused, but had no idea what he was focusing on. Nothing really came to mind and after he hadn't said anything for ten seconds, the doctor asked, "What do you see?"

"Nothing. My eyes are closed." He hadn't meant the smart-ass answer, but the whole thing was getting weird.

The doctor didn't say anything, but he could hear a pen scratching against paper. The chiming noise played again, this time at a slightly different pitch. And then- "It's a square." He saw it, plain as day like his eyes were open. "A white card with a blue square."

Again, no one responded to him, just noted the answer. And they went on that way for twenty more beats, images coming unbidden to his mind, squares, stars, circles, over and over. He had no idea if he was making them up just to have something to say after the disappointing first attempt or...

What else could it be? He thought of that room with all the men and the guns. It couldn't be linked. Right? He opened his mouth to ask, but the doctor steamrolled over him.

"Alright, you can open your eyes. We're going to move on to round two. It's very similar to what you've just done, only this time, after you hear the tone, I want you to describe what you feel in your hand."

"How's a tone going to make me feel something?" But then, how'd it make him see something?

The doctor shook his head. "Questions will be fielded after the study to avoid effecting the results."

He took a breath. Did it make sense to ask about the other room? Would they just eject him outright? Either for being crazy or for knowing something he shouldn't? This whole thing seemed ridiculous but the further he pressed on, the more he wanted to know. Because whatever this test was about, they knew something about what was going on in his head, and he wasn't going to leave without knowing what they did. "Alright. Let's go."

"Okay. Again, I want you to tell me as much as you can about what you feel in your hand. Textures, shape, material, temperature, anything that comes to mind."

The tone sounded. He waited, keeping his palms open like maybe that would help somehow. He focused and sure enough, he could feel something. A light weight in his hand. He looked down, just to be sure there was nothing really there. And it felt like-"It's like-It's a tennis ball." He snorted a little, squeezing the fingers of his right hand where he could still feel the fuzzy fibers against his fingers. Then it was gone.

The second tone played. He waited. Then he felt it. Light, about the size of his palm. Rubbery, with round corners. "It's an eraser, I think? Has that kind of rubber, dusty kind of feeling, sort of rectangular. Hard to say."

He heard the next tone and the rubber was gone. This one was more difficult to place at first. It was like-sand, maybe? No, the grains weren't nearly small enough. Pebbles were closer, but they weren't quite that hard or rough. Again and again it felt like his fingers were raking through a thousand small somethings and he sighed as his ten seconds were nearly up. "I don't know but it feels like a bunch of little things. Like-I don't know, rice? Seeds?"

An answer wasn't given. Instead the tone sounded again. He felt something immediately and his stomach dropped for reasons he couldn't name. "It's just an ice cube."

"But what do you feel in your hand?"

"An ice cube. I mean it's cold and it's damp."

"So you feel the temperature? The moisture?"

"Yeah." Another tone. The ice was gone. And then- "Hey!" he snapped, drawing his hand back to him, startled.

"What did you feel?"

"Felt like somebody dripped hot water on my palm." In retrospect, it wasn't painful so much as it was surprising. He hadn't expected it, and it contrasted highly with the ice cube from before. All of it should've been this shocking, really, and he sighed in agitation. "What is all this? What's going on?"

"Questions will be fielded after the study is complete."

He pressed his lips together and he focused hard. He looked down at his palm to be sure it wasn't injured and sure enough, it was fine. Nothing to evidence he'd even felt anything. He closed his eyes and willed himself to go back to that room with the guns, just to be sure, just to know-

The tone played. He opened his eyes. He was there. Hand held out, palm up, resting on the desk in front of him. That hand was still on his shoulder, like a comforting weight. A man on the other side of the desk took him by the wrist with one hand, a knife in the other, eyes on whoever was behind him. "No," he managed to say.

"Soldier," came the voice from behind him. The hand on his shoulder gave a squeeze. The voice was suddenly much closer. He could feel their breath on his cheek when they talked in a low, calming voice. "Cooperate. It's best when you cooperate. What you're doing is very important for us, and you will be rewarded for it." What the fuck was this? They were talking to him like he was a ten year old. Eat your peas and you get dessert. Let us slice you open and you get something nice.

He wanted to tell them all to go fuck themselves. But then the guy with the knife slammed it through his hand, pinning it to the desk like he was a bug in a glass case. He screamed, because that shit hurt no matter how many times you'd been shot or kicked.

"Mr. Rumlow, are you alright? Can you focus? What are you feeling?"

"You know what the fuck I'm feeling!" he managed to grit, suddenly snapped back to the office. He opened his eyes. He was curled in on himself, still upright, his right hand drawn to him tightly. He opened it, expecting it to be mangled, but no. It was fine. There wasn't a single mark on it, let alone a hole through his palm. "What the hell is going on here? Who is that guy you have locked up in a basement getting stabbed and why the fuck do I feel it?"

The doctor said nothing right away, but didn't seem phased by the questions. He gestured to the nurse and she approached him. "I'm just going to remove the electrodes now."

"You're god damn right you are. What is this? What did you do to me?"

"We haven't done anything to you, Mr. Rumlow," the doctor said, finishing his notes.

"Then what is this shit?" He gestured to his head.

"That's a question I'd like to be able to answer, but can't at this time. We don't have enough information to do so."

He laughed and shook his head. What a fucking day he was having. "That guy in the room-is he real? Do you know what that was?"

"Who and what you saw is not something I can explain to you. Not without your help."

"Why did I feel it when he was stabbed?"

"Why did you sink a bullet through a target's skull from two miles, a humanly impossible feat?"

He swallowed hard. "Blind fucking luck."

"Then maybe that's what happened here, too." The doctor closed the folder with the notes, and tapped them once against the counter to settle them. "Thank you for your participation. Your check is waiting for you at the desk."

"Hey, wait a minute!" he snapped, sliding off the chair before the doctor could leave. "What's it gonna take? To get answers?"

The doctor glanced to the nurse. She removed the EEG from the room and closed the door behind her. "Your cooperation and participation." He shuddered, thinking of the voice at his ear. _It's best when you cooperate._  "We need complete dedication, and most importantly, your silence."

He laughed. "My silence?"

"You're no stranger to covert operations. We know that. This is no different."

"It's actually a lot fucking different, if you hadn't noticed." He shook his head. But still, the desire to know what was happening to him was too overwhelming to ignore. "What is it you're asking me to dedicate myself to, exactly?"

"A worthy cause."

That was a meaningless explanation but something told him he wasn't going to get a better one unless he agreed to their terms. Whoever 'they' were. He looked down at his hand. He no longer felt even a lingering tickle of pain there. He wasn't willing to try to put himself back in that room to see if the same could be said of the other guy. "Say I walk out of here and forget about you. Say I go and tell everyone about what I saw and blow the whole lid off your operation, whatever it is. Still don't want to give me my answers?"

The doctor didn't seem the least bit concerned by that. "You know as well as I do that you see the risk involved in that. Beyond that, though, rehearse in your head, for a minute, what you would say. You saw a man in a room get stabbed and felt it like it was happening to you. Where was this man? How did you find him? What do you mean you _saw_ him? What do you mean you felt what he did?"

He considered the response and knew it was going to keep him from trying to tell anyone. Because who would believe him? Who would think he was anything other than a veteran who'd lost it?

"You aren't the only one interested in learning more about your condition. We do have the resources to solve this problem for you. If you want to try your hand at ignoring it, of pretending this never happened, by all means, do so. But if you'd like to do more, be more, than anyone has ever said you could be, contact us." The doctor held out a card.

He took it. There was nothing unusual about it. It could be for any doctor in the country. He turned it over, and it was blank.

"Take your time. Consider your options."

* * *

She chewed on her pencil and stared at the paper because that was absolutely going to solve this dilemma. Here she was. Calculus final. And she hadn't studied. Of course she had excuses. How many teenagers had to deal with what she did, _and_ calculus? And it wasn't that she hated math or anything. She knew it was important stuff. But come _on._ No she didn't want to crack open her textbook at one in the morning after dragging herself home from a dangerous fight! And no she didn't want to wake up at four in the morning just to get some studying done.

So what could she do? Accept her F and repeat the class, even if she'd done well for the first half of the year. Before all of the, uh, uniqueness. But man, bringing home an F was like going nuclear on her own life. She'd never see her friends again. She'd never leave her house. She'd never leave her _room._ If only she'd been more thoughtful, or just had more time to study or some _help-_

"You don't look like you know what you're doing."

She nearly yelped out loud. Instead she went tense, and let her eyes drift up first to the teacher's desk and then to get a look at whoever was standing beside her. It was that _guy._ The one with the blegh facial hair. She clenched her jaw and wrote on her scratch paper _What clued you in?_   Speaking wasn't an option. The room was pretty silent so it wasn't like she had to try hard to attract attention.

"The blank paper. The pencil chewing. The vacant stare that's way more 'I'm already picturing what it'll be like to take this course again next year' and way less 'considering thoughtfully the problem in front of me'."

_Thanks, you're a great cheerleader._

"The skirt's at the laundromat today, so sue me. Let me take a look." He squatted beside her desk, looking over the paper.

_What would you know? You're like forty, when was the last time you took calculus????_

The man snorted. "Just write what I say if you want to pass."

She thought of the fact that she knew this was cheating, and cheating was wrong. But she also thought, maybe Allah would understand and give her a pass since she did so much other stuff that was good. In fact, who was to say that Goatee here _wasn't_ divine intervention? Especially since no one else ever seemed to see him.  
  
Or maybe she was just going crazy. With a small sigh, she nodded to him slightly, pencil at the ready.

The guy talked, almost too fast for her to keep up with and she scribbled furiously, faithfully replicating everything he said to show her work as the test demanded. Which at first she thought totally sucked but now she realized it was a good thing because if it'd been multiple choice, she would've given herself up to guesswork a long time ago. Quickly, suspiciously so if anyone was watching her instead of wallowing in their own calculus induced misery, she filled the paper, closing in on the final answer when-

"Ah, crap, I've gotta go," Goatee said.

"What! No, you can't, this one's worth twenty five points on its own!" she whispered. Someone looked over at her and she felt her ears get red and she pretended she was mumbling the question to herself.

"That's unfortunate, but it's really kind of an emergency."

She went back to the scratch paper. _My life ends if I take home less than an A!_

"You were about to take home a solid F before I came here, so."

_So please! Just try!_

"Where are you?"

_What? At school!_

"Where _is_ the school?"

_Jersey City! Why does that matter-you could've answered this question by now!_

"And you could've studied. Look, I'll see what I can do for you. Don't sweat it."

With that, Goatee was gone and she was left on her own. Maybe she wasn't supposed to have _all_ of the answers handed to her. But she definitely should've started with the biggest, most difficult question first. "Crap," she whispered, staring at it. She took a breath and looked at some of the other answers. The guy had just rambled it all out in one go, like he had an answer key open in front of him or something. How could somebody do all this in their _head?_ She tried to use the other problems as jumping off points, looking for similarities or hints as to how to solve the final question. Her scratch sheet was now full of misguided attempts, scribbled out like she could erase her imminent failure. She might not have to repeat the class. But she wouldn't be seeing the light of day anytime soon.

Defeated, she looked out the window. The trees would probably be losing their leaves by the next time she saw them. But at least they'd still be there.

"Attention students in room 313, Mrs. Newsome's fifth period Calculus class," came a prim, British voice over the intercom. "Please be advised that the solution to problem fifteen on your final exam may be solved in the following manner-"

Everyone looked up at that. Kamala was able to catch a glimpse of pure confusion on Mrs. Newsome's face and she thought, with probably a little too much satisfaction, _how the tables have turned._ "Who is doing that?" she demanded. "Phones are supposed to be off during exams, people."

"-this gives y(x) equals negative one plus x3. Next, find the antiderivative of y-"

"I want everyone's phones on their desks, right now," Mrs. Newsome said. People were starting to laugh but everyone complied right away, which told Kamala that no one in the class was doing this with their phone. It was obviously coming from the intercom, but she couldn't blame Mrs. Newsome for checking. She set her own phone, screen up, and Mrs. Newsome quickly paced the aisles, looking for the source of the problem.

"-to find the value of C. Thirteen equals negative two plus two to the fourth power over-"

Mrs. Newsome opened the classroom door and sure enough, the voice could be heard out there too. Everyone watched, curious, as she called out to a teacher down the hall. "Do you know who's doing that?" A negative answer had her sighing with agitation and she rushed over to her desk to dial the front office. "Yes, who is on the intercom-" Kamala held her breath in anticipation while she dutifully recorded what the voice was saying without even looking at her paper. She figured it was worth a shot. Maybe she could claim she had the answer done before the voice came on, and the reason she hadn't turned in her test yet was to double-check her answers first. Yeah, that sounded good. "Who would _hack_ a high school intercom to give out _one_ answer to a final exam?!"

"Therefor, the solution to this IVP is y(x) equals negative x plus x to the fourth power over four, plus eleven. I hope this has been most informative. Thank you for your time."

The intercom was silent, but the room wasn't as some of her classmates began to whisper and laugh to each other. "Alright, that's enough," Mrs. Newsome said, having hung up the phone. "Eyes on your own papers. I don't know who is playing what kind of game here, but I'm removing question fifteen from the test." This was met with a mixture of annoyed sighs and some hissed _yesss!_ that told her she wasn't the only one who hadn't studied enough. "I'll be administering a supplemental question to the exam tomorrow-" A round of groans, since tomorrow _was_ the last day of school, a traditionally skippable day. "Well, you can thank your mysterious British friend for that, okay? A new question will be given, testing the same material. If you don't care about your grade, fine, skip it. But twenty-five points is something worth showing up for, if you want to pass." It definitely was.

Kamala let out a breath and buried her face in her arms on her desk. "Thank you Allah for sending Goatee and the British hacker guy into my life," she whispered. She swore up and down that she'd spend the night studying until she could solve the problem backwards.

* * *

The soldier staggered forward, bracing himself against what was left of the wall with his left arm. An unexpected error had occurred. The error being: an undetected explosive had been set off by the target, a HYDRA scientist who defected, threatening to inform SHIELD of their existence. The explosive may have been experimental, thus explaining why it hadn't been noticed before the soldier had been sent in.

He tried not to gasp so desperately. But he was losing blood quickly, and the pain made it difficult to breathe normally. He was, at the very least, better off than the target, who was now only one-fifth of a body, much of his torso obliterated by the explosion. Then he remembered that he was missing one of his original arms so technically, he was also one-fifth of a body and was therefore no better off.

His head felt hazy as he dragged himself towards the corridor. The building may have been evacuated once the explosion was triggered. His radio may have claimed that support personnel was en route but it was hard to say over the ringing in his ears. He choked on the blood that had suddenly bubbled up in his throat. Then he coughed it up, pressing shaking fingers to his lips. It was dark and red. He looked down at his stomach. A chunk of shrapnel was jutting from his side. He'd failed to notice initially, and tentatively suggested to himself that he may be in shock.

He coughed again, his knees disagreeing with this action and giving up in protest altogether. He decided he was done here.

Someone gasped loudly. He blinked and forced himself to find the source of the voice to ensure his surroundings were no longer hostile. A teenage girl stood on the tips of her sneakered toes, hands clamped over her mouth and eyes wide. Slowly, he looked around the room for further signs of threats. There was a bed, a desk, a book case, an open closet which only contained clothing. No one seemed to be hiding anywhere, though he couldn't see under the bed. "Oh man," the girl said, unmoving.

He pointed to the bed. He couldn't be bothered with speaking right now. She wasn't one of them and she would not admonish him for breaking protocol by demanding something.

"You-" She stopped herself, again staring at his most blatant injury. "Oh _man._ "

He pointed again.

"Okay, okay," she said quietly but rushed. She hooked his arm over her shoulders and he tensed because this was not what he'd been asking for but he didn't have much fight left in him right now. "Whoa, you're heavier than you look," he heard her mumble. Somehow, she momentarily seemed larger, but before he could decide if it was a result of shock and blood loss, he was on his back in the bed. He closed his eyes. If there was an assailant hiding beneath the bed, he was now vulnerable to their attacks. He rolled on to his side, wincing as it agitated his wound. "Hey, whoa, don't-" She tried to put a hand on his shoulder and he didn't brush it away but neither did he lay back. He had to be sure. Couldn't rest unless he knew.

"Are you looking under the _bed?_ " she asked. Quickly, she dropped to her knees and threw back the cloth that hid the empty space beneath the mattress. "There's nothing there. I mean, okay, so I've been looking for that shirt for awhile I guess, but-" She reached in and dragged the clothing away. Then she sat on the bed and stared at the shrapnel. Her hand hovered without touching. "What happened to you?"

"Pie."

"A _pie_ did that? What are you baking with, dynamite?" she asked.

" _Pie._ " He coughed blood and she winced, hands flying to her hair. "Chocolate."

"I don't think you're in any condition to be eating right now..."

"Please?"

Her face contorted into one of intense concern. "Don't die, okay? Please? I know I can't help you from here but-"

"Please?"

She darted away, closing her door behind her. He forced himself to keep his eyes open, once even digging his fingers into the inflamed skin where it was split open by the piece of metal. The extraction team must have been close by now. Maybe they already had him. He didn't want to go back. He wanted to stay here. The girl was kind. Not busy like the engineer. Not cold and guarded like the Widow. Not a trap like the commander. 

The door burst open and the girl was panting though he didn't think she had overexerted herself. "Okay, I had to literally steal this from my brother, it was the last piece so...don't die. Enjoy it."

There was a fork, like last time. He didn't have time for that. She made an alarmed noise when he shoved the pie at his mouth, biting through half the piece. It was the most perfect thing he'd ever tasted-the chocolate filling was light and creamy and smooth, the crust a deeper flavor, whipped cream was smeared on the bottom of his nose but he _didn't care._ All that mattered was the taste, a thing he hadn't experienced in-in-

"It's just a Marie Callendar pie," the girl whispered. He didn't know what that meant. He took another bite, eyes closing against the protest of his stomach wound. He coughed, and he frowned at the way the coppery blood tainted the perfect taste of the pie. "Do they let you eat?"

He shook his head, licking at his fingers. They were bloody, too, but he was so desperate for any lingering sweetness that he was willing to ignore it.

"Do you know where you are?" the girl pressed.

He thought for a moment. They never told him where his assignments were. Not since he'd been Russian. He was American now, and they said he didn't need to know. They'd put the bag over his head and flew him out, delivered him to some city that maybe he'd been a thousand times before or maybe never in his life. He couldn't remember everything. His head was too full and getting fuller every day. So finally, he shook his head.

The girl gave a defeated sigh. "This is so-so-!" She groaned. "You're out there just practically _dying_ and I can see you but I can't even do anything to help!"

He frowned. She thought she wasn't helping? He wanted to explain to her that he came here _because_ she was so much of a help. Because she was always kind and her voice didn't snap and yell angrily and she never tried to hurt him. What could be more helpful than that? Instead, he pointed to the empty plate which had held the pie she'd brought him, hoping she'd understand.  
  
She covered her face with her hands and cried.


End file.
